Mazes of Scorpio (8 page)

“I thought the Savanti merely wished to make the world over—”

“The Savanti wish to make the world of Kregen a world for apims alone. We believed you understood that.”

It had been there, a black thought in my mind, to be driven out and banished. Much had pointed to that reading of the way the Savanti operated. They sent their Savapims out into the world to preserve an apim way of life. They had recruited me from Earth, to be a Savapim, and I had failed them and been driven out — rather, I’d told them to keep their paradise and had escaped with Delia. Now I saw the truth. And I sorrowed, for I had loved the Savanti and their Swinging City of Aphrasöe.

I took a breath.

“This is bad news. Tell me, Everoinye, why do you open up these secrets to me now—?”

“We grow old, Dray Prescot.”

The fear in me took a strange turn.

If the Star Lords could grow old, perhaps die, how would that affect the fate of Kregen?

“I have a thousand years of life because I bathed in the Pool of Baptism in Aphrasöe. You, Star Lords, must have many and many a thousand years of life—”

“If we have, you would do well to think that perhaps those thousands of years are not to be devoted to Kregen alone.”

I felt shattered.

Then a thought came to me that might be connected.

I said, “You told me that the Savanti objected to what the Curshin did on Kregen—”

“Stop, Dray Prescot!”

The voice almost knocked me over with its power.

“You are a rogue, a miscreant, a man with a charisma that can rouse whole nations to do your will and bidding with joy and gladness. But you may not speak of things that you cannot understand. We told you there are Others of whom we do not speak. The Curshin are not of these. But you do not speak of them.”

Somehow, I managed to keep my mouth shut.

The Star Lords went on speaking.

“There are forces driving on the Shanks, as we have told you, obvious forces. But there are Powers that drive on the forces that impel those that drive the Shanks. In these things, Dray Prescot, you may not meddle.”

I burst out: “By Vox! I don’t want to meddle in any of it! I just want to get the business finished!”

“And that is your task to perform. If you do it well, you may remain on Kregen.”

“I’ll do it,” I raged. “By the disgusting diseased left nostril of Makki Grodno! I’ll do it or get chopped in the doing — as you damned well know!”

“We know, Dray Prescot. We know. And — we know far more than you think we know of yourself; because you do not understand yourself at all.”

By Zair! That was true — confound it...

The arms of the chair began to writhe up. I guessed there was to be an end to this audience. I got a deep lungful of air and said in my old harsh way, “How long do we have before that enormous fleet of Shanks reaches us? And, where will they touch land?”

“As to the latter — that you must wait and see. As to the former—” Here the arms clamped me tightly. “You have a few seasons yet.”

“Enough to—?”

“Enough to do what you want to do, what you know you must do. When the time is nearer, we will call on you again — if we do not call on you before that.”

Was there that incongruous note of laughter that I have likened to the last bubble in a forgotten glass of champagne? The Star Lords, were they laughing at me?

The chair gripped me. The blackness swirled. All the stars of the galaxy went around in my head and Seg said, “Here, my old dom, catch hold of this bread, will you. The soup is almost done.”

Chapter seven

Into Pandahem

The pursuit continued all through the night.

The Moons of Kregen sailed majestically overhead, the stars massed into a pervasive glitter that reminded me uncomfortably of the spanning star-glitter in that crimson curved chamber, and Seg and I in comradely fashion took watch turn and turn about.

As we both half expected, the fleeing voller swung sharp left-handed after passing the northern coast of Hamal. She fleeted westward. Here we were practically on the Equator.

“Pandahem,” said Seg. “Has to be.”

“I agree. So there’s no wager there.”

Seg screwed up his face.

Our voller was making a speed equivalent to just under eighty miles an hour, a pretty fast clip for an airboat, but slow in comparison with some of the swift vollers in existence. We continued to head due west. Seg sniffed the breeze, and looked around from south to north.

Then he said, “No wager on Pandahem, that is true. But a wager on which part?” He laughed, his fey blue eyes very merry. “And any loon would suggest we are making for the southern half, I’ll wager you we’re headed for the northern.”

That thought had been in my mind.

“Very well. I had a hankering for the north. They’ll turn north, probably, and aim to bypass the Koroles. A due northwest course would suit them. So, I’ll wager on the south.”

“A gold double-talen?”

I nodded.

“Done.”

Past Skull Bay and due west over the sea fleeted the voller. The day passed. We saw no signs of any other aerial traffic, although twice we passed above argenters, their fat sails bellying and their fat hulls punching into the sea.

We sat and talked and fiddled with our equipment and eyed the fleeing airboat.

“He makes no signs of changing course.”

“He is well aware we are following.”

“Of course. And,” said Seg, “I’ll wager he doesn’t care!”

“You think he wants us to follow into a trap?”

“More than likely.” Seg ran an oiled rag down a sword blade that had been polished to a blinding reflection. “He knows you’re aboard.”

“Maybe,” I said, deliberately ignoring Seg’s suggestion that if I were around then everyone would be setting traps for me. Mind you, by Vox, it was uncomfortably near the truth... “I’d suggest he’s a cautious navigator. He hugs the coast.”

“Well, no one is stupid enough to fly northwest from Ruathytu, over the Western Hills and across whatever lies beyond. The wild men out there are plain murder.”

“Yes. But it looks as though he’s going to fly along the coast and then turn due north for Pandahem. Cautious to a degree.”

“It could be,” said Seg, looking up, “that he has one of the old Hamalian vollers that always broke down.”

I nodded, realizing the justice of the suggestion.

Now that we had formed bonds of friendship with Hamal, we did not have to buy inferior airboats that continually broke down. But there were still a lot about, despite the losses of the Times of Trouble and the wars.

“If his flier does break down, we’re nicely situated to go down and haul him out of the drink. And Pancresta.”

But the voller we pursued did not falter in her onward rush through the air of Kregen.

Even at ten db
[iii]
the journey took a goodly time and I said to Seg, fretfully, “You’d think the Hamalese would provide the fastest vollers for their guards. Nedfar evidently overlooked that.”

“Had they done so, that flier up front would be going as fast as we are.”

Good old Seg! Trust him to sort out the idiotic remark and upend it for all to see. In this case the all was me.

Then Seg stuck his face up, staring ahead.

“Hullo. He’s changing course.”

I joined Seg and we watched as the flier up ahead swung gently around, not losing distance over a too-acute turn, and headed into the northwest.

“That course will—” Seg paused, and then went on “—take him between Wan Witherm and the Koroles. It looks like South Pandahem, after all.”

We turned to follow.

“It’s all jungles and stuff there, I believe.”

“Well, he may fly on over the Central Mountains.”

Settling down again to this stern chase, we brewed up, and ate some more of the rations. We estimated we could eat them all by the time we arrived at the south coast of the island of Pandahem. If the Spikatur people up front escaped from us over a simple matter like the lack of provender, we’d be looking silly.

“Tighten our belts, my old dom. They won’t starve us into giving up the chase.”

I laughed.

“They will more likely escape through a lack of potables in this voller — yes?”

And Seg laughed, too.

We found a brass-bound spyglass in one of the lockers and took turns staring after the voller ahead. I summed up her lines, seeing they were identical for all practical purposes to our own voller’s. The differences were merely those of ornamentation. The reason why our speeds were so evenly matched was, therefore, simple. We all flew in the same breed of airboat.

“When I worked in the voller yards of Sumbakir,” I said, “we built mostly personal fliers. But I recognize like and like. We’ll not catch that fellow unless he does something extremely foolish.”

“That may be. But he has to come down somewhere, some time. Then we’ll drop down on top of him.”

“Aye.”

The air tanged with heat, now, the sea below a sweltering shimmer. The rush of the breeze blew as a solid wall of heat, hot and choking in our faces.

“Southeast Pandahem,” I said. “I don’t know that part of the world, Seg.”

“I know nothing definite, either. There was a fellow I knew — a paktun with one ear missing and a ferocious squint, old Frandor the Schturmin — told me he’d once served a king or prince down in the southeast. Stinking jungles, he said. Potty as notors, the lot of ’em, so Frandor said.”

“I can believe it.”

Then Seg let rip his chuckling grunt of good humor.

“I agreed with him, too. That was before you made me a damned notor, a jen, and dumped me in it. All lords are stark staring bonkers. It is a law of nature.”

“That,” I said, and I spoke mildly, “I do not believe.”

“No? Well, maybe. All I will say is that if the jungle is our destination, we’ll sweat a trifle.”

The dwaburs passed away, and as we had anticipated, the food ran out.

I eyed Seg.

He saw me looking at him.

I licked my lips.

“You look fat and healthy, Seg,” I said. “I wonder how much seasoning you will need.”

“You could put all the salt on my tail you liked, my old dom. I’d still be too damned stringy.”

“As to that, that I do believe.”

We almost lost our quarry in a build-up of clouds over the coast.

The voller ahead darted into a white canyon of billowing cloud. We followed, and we had the speed lever notched over past its rightful halting place. We held on; but it was a near thing.

Thunderstorms raged among the clouds.

Twice we were hurled end over end, and twice we righted ourselves, clinging on with gripping fingers, to hurl our voller on in pursuit.

The storms held us both up, pursuer and pursued alike, and presently the flier carrying Pancresta began a series of maneuvers which, apart from wasting time, gained them not a palm in distance upon us.

At last we broke free of the storms and the darkness and sailed on over jungle, steaming in the new radiance.

A wide river rolled along below, brown and smooth, carving its path through the forest.

“If you can believe what old Frandor the Schturmin told me, and if I’m right, that’ll be the River of Bloody Jaws.”

I nodded. There was no need to enlarge on who owned the jaws in the Kazzchun River.

“She flows down from the Central Mountains all the way to the Sea of Chem.” Seg gestured over the coaming. “There is a fair amount of traffic.”

On the broad brown surface boats moved, mostly propelled by long sweeps all working in unison. There were a few more rakish craft tacking along. We saw a few small habitations in clearings along the banks. Whoever lived down there made what they could out of their surroundings.

We flew on, deeper into the island. Pandahem, like Vallia, in size is on the order of the size of Australia; there was a lot of it. Hereabouts, quite clearly, the river formed the main and best, possibly the only, means of communication.

Scraps of cloud drifted by. We saw flocks of waterfowl, wide-winged and long-necked, rising in multitudes from the waters. Brown mudflats gleamed. On those banks the ominous forms of risslaca showed. No one was going swimming in the River of Bloody Jaws without regretting the notion.

“I don’t expect to see any fliers here in Pandahem,” said Seg. “But they must be known. The folk down there do not pay as much attention.”

“Hamal and Hyrklana never would sell vollers to Loh or Pandahem, among others. Now we have these damned Shanks to fight I think the Pandaheem will get their vollers.”

“They’re surely needed in this part of the world.”

We flew so grandly over the tops of the trees. What it would be like down there, trudging along, was something I did not wish to find out. Even the river for travel would be a headache.

Up ahead the forest lifted to a shallow range of hills. They were not mountains. But there were a lot of them, serried ranks of rounded slopes, one after another, and every one crammed with the ferocious vegetation of the jungle. The rain forest swarmed up over the rounded hills.

“The river trends away to the east,” said Seg.

“I see. Is that a town near the beginning of the bend?”

Seg used the spyglass.

“Yes. Now, I wonder...?”

But the voller flew on, over the town in its riverside clearing, on and rising to soar over the unending roundnesses of the jungle-clad slopes.

We no longer flew a trifle west of north following the course of the river as it rolled down southeast. Now we flew on over solid jungle.

Seg had the spyglass trained neatly on the voller.

I thought I glimpsed a flicker of movement among the trees ahead of the path of the voller.

There was just a sudden movement there, a hint of a cloud of black dots, and then the sky over the trees was clear.

“Seg! Train your glass down, ahead of the voller — there — there where that rounded hill slopes over that valley—”

He did as I said, instantly.

After a moment, he said, “I see only trees.”

“I thought I glimpsed — something — there.”

“Only trees, now.”

He handed me the glass.

I looked. The tops of the closely packed trees jumped into focus. I was looking down onto the crowns of the denizens of a rain forest, and no prying with human eyes would descry what lay on the forest floor.